Private Schools, Earthquakes: What we know from Pakistan (with insights for Haiti)

1. Private Schools, Earthquakes: What we know from Pakistan (with insights for Haiti) Jishnu Das (World Bank) TahirAndrabi (Pomona College) (with inputs from Natalie Bau and ErumHaider, World Bank)

2. What could Pakistan and Haiti have in common? • Poor countries • Poor investments in education • Poor educational outcomes • Private school presence • Large and growing in Pakistan (NOT madrassas, which account for 1-1.5% of enrollment) • Much larger in Haiti • Pakistan has much better information on private schools (LEAPS and APPEAR projects) • Argue that this provides valuable insights for Haiti 1 – Wolff, 2008 2 – 2007 figures, World Bank

3. Outline • Facts about Pakistani private schools • Growth • Costs • Quality • Recovery after earthquakes • Location patterns and what they mean • Key message • In Pakistan private schools provide a cheap, higher quality alternative to public schools but they do not arise everywhere • due to supply constraints in the availability of teachers • Argue that we can reexamine Haitian education in the light of these data

4. Pakistani private schools • Secular, “mom and pop” schools • Mostly unregistered • No regulation (even on curriculum) • Recipe for disaster?

5. What we know from existing work

6. Private School Growth • Enrollment shares in private schools increased dramatically, from less than 5% in 1990 to 35% in 2007 in Pakistan • Large portion of the growth has come in rural regions • Not specific to Pakistan—identical patterns in India • Enrollment shares increased even as the government poured money into public schools Click here to see pictures

7. Private School Costs • Private schools are (very) cheap • The median fee in a private school is still less than a dime a day • Fees represent 1.7% of average household expenditure in rural areas • Cost per student in a private school is ½ of that in a public school (lower bound estimate: other estimates suggest 1/6) Click here to see the table of fees in Pakistani provinces

8. Why are private schools so cheap? • Private schools hire • Mostly female, local teachers with • Only secondary education and no training whom they • Pay very low wages ($15 a month) • Teachers in public schools make 5 times as much as those in private

9. “Better” civic values Far better test-score outcomes 1/3rd TIMSS standard-deviation But inputs are NOT outputs!

10. Causality? In two different papers, we show that the results that children in private schools report higher test-scores and better civic values are causal - Using children who switch from one type of school to another over time - Using instrumental variables Message? Test-scores and civic outcomes are better in totally decentralized, unregulated private schools relative to public schools. Unqualified teachers in private schools produce (far) better outcomes than qualified teachers in government schools—and at less than half the price.

11. Schooling and the Pakistani Earthquake of 2005: New work

12. School Destruction in the Earthquake

13. Recovery from the Pakistani Earthquake

14. Perhaps because of this • New household survey in 2009 that compares households close to fault-line with those further away suggests (TBC!): • No impact of earthquake on 2009 enrollment • No impact of earthquake on 2009 test-scores • Even though disruption was higher closer to the fault-line • Could reflect pre-existing baseline differences (unlikely) • Could reflect survivorship bias (work underway)

15. So why not only private schools?

16. Key problems are on the supply-side • Across villages, private schools are overwhelmingly in richer and larger villages

17. Supply-side issues: A typical village in Punjab, Pakistan • Within villages, private schools are overwhelmingly in the centre

18. Centrally related to the availability of teachers • Private schools are causally 300 percent more likely to locate in villages with a government secondary school—the students of today are the teachers of tomorrow • Therefore, for private schools to arise at low costs and operate without subsidies require initial subsidies for secondary education! • Click here to see picture

19. Back to Haiti • Current Thinking • Educational outcomes are poor • Costs are high with most kids in private schools • Private schools are poor because inputs are poor • Therefore, we require free government education • Reevaluate in the context of Pakistan

20. Educational outcomes again: Is enrollment worse than other similar-income countries? Are Haitian outcomes abnormally bad relative to its income level? 1 – Most recent enrollment figures: Haiti – Wolff (2008); Nigeria – World Bank, 2006; rest – World Bank, 2007 2 – World Bank, 2008 figures

21. Costs of schooling: comparing Haiti and Pakistan, all numbers are converted to 2005 PPP adjusted dollars using UN Stats on PPP 1- Salmi, J. (2000) “Equity and Quality in Private Education: the Haitian Paradox,” Compare, 30:2, pp163-178 2- World Bank, (2007) Project Appraisal Report: Grant to Haiti for Education for All Project (internal document). Washington, DC 3- Salmi, op cit. 4- Reported fees (World Bank 2007, citing 2005 DHS). Because of the shortage of public schools, only children who attend expensive private pre-primary schools that teach reading and writing secure a place. Public schools are also prone to rent-seeking, or requiring parents to pay part of school costs (Salmi, 2000) 5- LEAPS Report, 2007* The 2005 DHS calculated average school fees across the Haiti education system. Since the private sector makes up most of the education system, this average serves a s an approximation on average private school fees.

23. Haiti and Pakistan: Making sense of it all (if the numbers are correct!)

24. The derived demand for private schooling: Case 1 is fees are high • Moving from Pakistani equilibrium to Haitian equilibrium consistent with • Far higher demand in Haiti • Supply may be worse or better

25. Derived demand for private schooling: Case 2 is Fees are not high • Moving from Pakistani equilibrium to Haitian equilibrium consistent with • Better supply in Haiti • Demand probably higher

26. Pakistan and Haiti: Putting it together • From Pakistan we know that • Educational outcomes at these levels more to do with time on educational instruction and ability to monitor, hire, fire and reward teachers rather than wages and qualifications • Fixed cost of setting up a school is very small, but finding teachers in rural areas is hard

27. Pakistan and Haiti: Putting it together • Three possibilities • The data are wrong and private schools in Haiti are fairly “good” • OR, the problem is spatially localized • With severe constraints on labor market mobility (esp. rural to rural). Are their security/safety issues? • & Very low secondary school penetration: no teachers available locally • AND/OR Government schools are rationed (not the case in Pakistan) so private schools also represent very low demand for certain types of children • Plausible, but still hard to explain higher prices and lower quality • There are enormous regulatory and bribery costs in setting up even “illegal” unregistered schools

28. If we believe all this • Problem in Haiti is a spatial distribution issue • Private schools are geographically highly concentrated (?) • Two types of rural areas • Areas with government and private schools • Areas without government schools • Here private schools are non-existent or very low quality (& price)

29. Question is what institutions will work • Always possible to setup very high cost, well functioning boutique schools. Some of this in Pakistan • Partially useful • If the problem is supply, fix supply by increasing availability of government secondary education • Longer term solution that can yield large benefits • In the short-run, tent schools set up in Pakistan spontaneously within a month of the quake • But pinning down the prices and spatial distribution is key to figuring out future policy • Right now, there are 2 totally different potential views of what is going on. • At least with regard to schooling, that is the real Haitian Paradox

30. Supplementary Slides

31. Private School Growth India: Private School Enrollment Incidence in the 1990s Pakistan: Private School Enrollment Incidence in the 1990s The figures show the growth rate of private school enrollment shares for every PCE decile and grouped by urban and rural areas Private Schools dramatically increased their share of the educational market even as governments poured money into the public sector. Most of the growth was in ruralareas Click here to return to main presentation

32. Private School Costs Private schools are (very) cheap: currently, they still cost less than a dime a day Note: $1=60 PKR Click here to return to main presentation

33. Centrally related to the availability of teachers • Private schools are causally 300 percent more likely to locate in villages with a government secondary school—the students of today are the teachers of tomorrow Click here to return to main presentation